Job Shadow

Sarah had her job shadow today with a surgical PA at the hospital in West Bend. I didn’t get to hear a whole lot of details, she told Kris about how things went mostly. However from what I was able to gather I am not sure she liked it. It sounds like it went well enough, and she actually got to see several different procedures in the OR. But it sounded like the things that the PA did in surgery didn’t much interest her. She (the PA) was doing a lot of assisting, such as holding ribs open, and things like that. Not that it would be all that appealing to me either, but if you wanted to do more than that, then go to med school! I think there were a few follow up type appointments in the afternoon, but for the most part, I think Sarah found it interesting, but not appealing.

Interviewing

Since Sarah is home on spring break, she is looking for a new summer job. She has already said she is done with working at Steins, so she needs to find something else to do. She had been filling out online applications the last few weeks, and got herself an interview at the new Mr. Brew’s Taphouse for a waitressing position. When the manager called her for an interview last week, she told me that she didn’t get a very good vibe off of the guy. I believe her words were, “he seemed sort of annoyed when he found out she was in LaCrosse and would not be able to start until May”. She was going to just blow off the interview altogether, but I told her not to. At the very least it would be experience with interviewing and it wasn’t like she had anything else to do. Who knows, maybe they’ll work with her to hold something until she finishes the semester and is home for the summer.

New Furniture

After about 15 years, we finally decided to go look for some new living room furniture. We have needed new stuff for some time, but could just never quite decide what exactly to do in our room. Our problem is that the room is long and narrow, and we have made it into two distinct areas. The layout doesn’t lend itself to a single room, but to give it to distinct areas (a living room and a dining room) doesn’t quite work either. However, Kris and I finally decided it was time to come up with something. The leather on the couch was old and worn, and the supports for the sleeper have somehow become broken and the cushions sag to the point of almost needing help in order to stand up after sitting on the couch.

We tried a few different stores, and nothing seemed to jump out, until we got a Bilt-Rite furniture on the south side. The salesman there was not pushy, he let us wander about and take our time looking, and when we had a question or wanted some more information on a particular style, or item, he was very helpful for us. We ended up getting a new couch, and a new chair. I am not sure it is going to be exactly what we want, but at the very least, it will be better. No more overstuffed cushions and big arms. It is going to be quite a minimized look I think. Sharp lines, with good support for sitting.

I thought we were going to get our new furniture right away, but we were informed that there was going to be an 8-10 week wait time. I suppose that will work out since it will give me time to get the living room touched up. And by touched up I mean painted, get new lamps, and new rug, etc. so that we won’t need to be moving the new furniture around once it arrives, the old stuff can be moved out, and the new stuff can go in, and we’ll hit the ground running.

Showcase

Every year since Sarah started in cheerleading when she was in 5th grade the cheer season has ended with the cheer showcase. It is really nothing more than a final chance for the cheerleaders to perform in front of their parents, to have the varsity girls do some of their stunts/skills for the parents and younger kids, as well as an opportunity for the coaches to give the seniors a final send off. With the State cheer competition coming so late, we weren’t sure we were going to have a cheer showcase this year. Actually, after thinking about it, it really wasn’t all that late, maybe a week later than last year. But at any rate, I don’t think anyone planned anything this year, so they hastily put something together for tonight. We were actually half expecting the varsity coach to announce this was her last year and that they were going to start the search for a new coach for next year. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Ali loves her coaches, though I am not really sure if they are going to stick around until she is a senior.

But anyway, here are some shots from the evening. Enjoy!

First On The Road

Ali had her first on the road driving instruction tonight.  I don’t know if she was looking forward to it or not.  I think that she would rather drive with someone other than me, because they wouldn’t be trying to keep her from hitting things as much as I am, or correcting her when she takes a 90° corner at 20 mph.  When I drove up to the school to pick her up, I saw her drive past.  I had to wait for about five minutes for her to finish, and when I asked her how it went she said, fine, but that she did not enjoy it.  When I asked why, she told me all she did was drive in circles.  Yep, for one hour, she drove the circle of Titan Dr., Franklin Dr., and Merrimac Dr. around the high school and Ben Franklin grade school.  B-O-R-I-N-G!  Yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t be happy with that.

This is the only time she does that, from what I was told.  Next time she actually gets out on the road.  

State Cheer Championships

The high school cheer championships were this weekend.  And this year the “governing body” moved the competition from Madison to LaCrosse.  In addition, they did away with the regional finals the weekend before and instead had everything lumped into one weekend.  We weren’t exactly sure what to expect from it, but when it was all said and done, I am going on record as saying I hate this setup.

The competition started at 9:00 AM, and we were planning on stopping and picking up Sarah before heading over to the LaCrosse Center.  This meant we had to leave very early in the morning, approximately 5:30 since it is a 3 hour drive.  I managed to make decent time doing about 78-80 mph (yes, I know I was speeding, but I drove behind cars that were going faster, so sue me) so we got up there a little earlier than planned.  We actually had to wait for Sarah because she had only gotten up about 10 minutes before we arrived.  Ali’s team didn’t perform until around 11:00 (I forget what the actual time of their preliminary performance was) so we got to watch all the other teams.  

The arena was actually fairly empty when the first teams went on (which I suppose is to be expected).  I wanted to make sure that we got to see the “competition” so I could evaluate whether they would make the finals or not.  When it came time for them to perform, I thought they did a decent job, but after seeing some of the other teams, I didn’t know if they would make the finals.  I thought they were going to be “on the bubble”.  There were, if I remember right, about 14 teams, and the top 7 advanced to finals in the evening.  It turns out they placed higher than I would have thought, placing fifth.  Go figure.  I suppose that it is a good thing I am not a judge.

We had about a 90 minute break before finals started so we went and grabbed some lunch with Sarah.  We made it back early so we would be able to get a fairly good seat for the finals.  The lower level seating right in front of the girls was reserved for all the judges, so we had to try and sit as close to the middle as possible.  Their performance in the finals round was much better than the preliminary round, so we were hopeful that they would place well.  



Then a couple of the teams that finished better than us in the prelims had a fall or two, which opened the door for the girls to move up.

We were hopeful that they would at least place, which they did.  They ended up getting third, though I thought they were better than the team that finished ahead of them in second place (Boo Hamilton!).  I thought they were jobbed, but as we saw with the prelims, I don’t know much.  When everything was over and the coaches picked up their scoresheets, we found out that the girls missed out on second place by 0.1.  That is even worse than how they finished at nationals! (coulda, woulda, shoulda).  But the girls were very happy with their performance, and at least they placed.

Now on to the critique of the event itself.  IT SUCKED!  The venue itself wasn’t too bad, though I may have changed around the placement of the stage, or where they performed.  I wasn’t thrilled with having to watch off to the side.  And how bad would it have sucked to drive up (3 hours from the Milwaukee Metro area, longer if you were further south, like Racine) and have your performance be one of the first of the day, not make the finals, and then have to drive home.  I guess you could have come up the night before and stayed in a hotel.  We were planning on doing that until we found out that our team was going to drive up the day of.  If we had gone up the night before, then no one would have been around to take Ali to school.  Then a couple of days before, after calceling our hotel we find out that the girls were just going to meet in LaCrosse the day of the competition and save the cost of renting a bus.  Had I known, I wouldn’t have canceled out reservation.

But all of that paled in comparison to the awards.  The event got behind so awards were supposed to start at something like 7:00.  In reality it wasn’t until more like 7:30.  And then, it took over two hours to announce all the awards in each category.  That was not cool!  There was also some rule about teams having a 30 minute window after their performance to appeal their score.  So we had to wait 30 minutes after the last team finished to start.  I understand that they wanted each team to have their time in the spotlight.  But couldn’t they have done all the pictures in a different place, off stage, while announcing the next category?  Fine, I’ll applaud the third place team in the Small Varsity Cheer/Dance Non-Tumble division.  But do I seriously need to watch them have their picture taken too?  All the parents were on the floor taking photos as well as the “official photographers”.  Also, they could have begun the awards for some of the other teams/categories that were not waiting for that 30 minute window at the end.  With how long the award took and when the final teams were announced, I don’t think starting awards 10 minutes after the last team performed is much to ask.  And if they are tallying the scores in each division anyway as they go along, there should be no need to wait so long.  It was ridiculous… the epitome of inefficiency.  Toward the end, the announcer was yelling at the crowd to sit down, and quiet down, so they could finish announcing the winners.  But I don’t fault people for wanting to get out of there.  We had a 3 hour drive home, and some teams had longer drives than us.

The president of the WACPC had said before that she welcomed comments and suggestions since this was their first year in LaCrosse.  I am seriously thinking about taking her up on that and blasting how the competition was run this year.